(World) Literature for Europe

In the aftermath of the First World War, the Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig imagined a humanist Europe where people of diverse cultures and nationalities could live together peacefully. He was convinced that literature could do more than international law and politics to overcome the conflict of war and ‘heal’ Europe from the ‘patriotic infection’. In an effort to promote the interest in foreign cultures and take away prejudices and misunderstandings, Zweig published a prestigious series of World Literature in the early 1920s, called Bibliotheca Mundi. By making foreign literature circulate beyond their original culture, readers would be able to encounter unfamiliar worlds and learn about foreign cultures, without actually travelling. This, he believed, would cool down nationalist hatred and thus advance the peaceful Europe he envisaged.  Zweig’s project of World Literature for Europe reflects evident contradictions between the global, the European and national scopes. This paper will examine these contradictions.